Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Tuesday November 09, 2010 @08:47AM
from the sterility-seems-like-value-add dept.

Velcroman1 writes "Whoever invented the 'laptop' probably didn't worry too much about male reproductive health. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that sitting with a computer on your lap will crank up the temperature of your nether regions, which could affect sperm quality. And there is little you can do about it, according to the authors of a study out today in the journal Fertility and Sterility, short of putting your laptop on a desk. The researchers hooked thermometers to the scrotums of 29 young men (!) who were balancing a laptop on their knees. They found that even with a lap pad under the computer, the men's scrotums overheated quickly. 'Millions and millions of men are using laptops now, especially those in the reproductive age range,' said Dr. Yefim Sheynkin, a urologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who led the new study."

Despite what may seem obvious, it wasn't so much the heat coming from the computer that was doing it. When you think about it, the hot parts of a laptop are a good distance away from your scrotum (or, at least, they should be if you're not doin' it wrong). The researchers found that it was the leg position used to keep the computer on the lap - i.e., legs closed together - that was the source of the problem.

Indeed.

Everyone is wringing their hands about the worldwide drop in sperm counts... I wonder how much of that is due to the current fashionable explanation (we live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of manmade xenoestrogens), versus how much of that is due to simply sitting all day long.

It is only recently, historically speaking, that we've all started to sit for a living. And since we've also been taught to fear the sun ("OMG teh UV rays!!11!"), we move around even less.

Very well, let's see how I'd do some everyday activities with an iPad.

First I SSH and VNC into the home server (after paying any requisite app fees) and...now I have to type with an on-screen keyboard? And it's damn impossible to hit anything accurately with capacitive touch unless I zoom right up. Well this sucks, but moving on.

Next I've been screwing around with my N900's OS and it won't boot, so I have to reimage it. Oh wait the iPad doesn't have a USB port, but that's okay because I can't compile the flasher utility on it anyways. But hey it can't do everything right? I mean how many people do that?

Now I want to reflash a router so I have to wire in. Wait, no ethernet port, damn.

Now I need to read some files from a CD. Oh wait.

Next I need to work on some files stored on a USB flash drive. Nope, can't.

Time to transfer my home server's boot drive to another disk, so I plug....fuck.

Now I'll plug the iPad into the TV and watch some shows served from my home server via samba shares. What there's no samba client? Crap. Okay I use my N900 to remotely set up a uPnP/DLNA media server to serve the videos. It's anime watchin' time....and there are no subtitles now T_T

Maybe if I put the files right on the device and play them with a compatible media player (additional fees may apply). Oh wait the iPad's CPU can't handle HD playback, I'd need to transcode the file manually first. Well I don't feel so bad about the lack of Samba now I guess, because I'd run into the same problem.

Okay so now it's time to put some DRM-free ebooks on this thing, reading ebooks is it's specialty right? I'll just Bluetooth transfer it...oh wait can't do that...I need to use iTunes...great...so I fire up the power-guzzling gaming desktop (as I often have to do now that I've replaced my laptop with an iPad) and install it in a VM, and sync the files across. Well that was a lot of work but it's done now.

So now maybe I'll take this ebook with me outside the house. And I have to carry this bigassed thing in addition to my phone that can do everything it can and much more. But I have a lot more screen space...in terms of inches, in pixels not so much...but that makes up for it, right?

With "free" health care, purchased on our dime, we will make that a reality. Unless, of course, that "health care" involves mandatory eugenics just like the progressives wanted back in the good ol' days of the early 20th century.
So much for the elitist progressive's idea that "sharing the wealth" will make everyone into affluent, successful little Prius-driving vegans, huh? The true class warfare involves the narcissistic socialists against the "poor and dumb".